


Almost Found

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Set within the film: Pitch heads to the Warren to ruin Easter, however his plans are interrupted when little Sophie turns up in all her adorableness. Pitch can’t exactly remember who, but Sophie reminds him of someone that once meant a lot to him (his daughter!) and despite himself ends up foregoing his evil plot to play games with Sophie, who is miraculously unafraid of him. Lots of bittersweet adorableness!And then the Guardians show up and ruin everything."Pitch plays hide and seek with Sophie, and Sophie almost finds someone.





	Almost Found

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 9/1/2014

Pitch’s plans progressed faster than he had ever thought they would, and he snuck into the Warren with grains of sand from his arrow still stuck to his fingertips. Everything depended on the next few hours, and he couldn’t pause to think about what had happened and what he had done. Sandy was dead and there was no going back, now. Tooth—memories stolen. Sandy—shot. It was time for Easter to fall.  
  
The breezes of the Warren played softly with the hem of his robe, so tempting in their warmth that Pitch felt a question forming in his mind, asking himself or nobody if he would rather not be welcomed into this place rather than destroy it. He shoved it away. He had told himself that there was no going back and he was not a liar.  
  
A shrill squeal cut through his thoughts, and he turned toward it immediately. He didn’t stop searching for the source even as he told himself that he shouldn’t be drawn to it this way. The noise was not a scream, after all.  
  
Another, much nearer squeal pulled him around a mossy boulder to find a little blonde-haired girl playing hide and seek with the walking eggs.  
  
“Found you!” He said, and before he could think why he had led with this, the little girl looked up and at him. At  _him!_  Perhaps—but no, this was meaningless. However the girl had gotten here, she was young enough that she’d accept everything about this place, even him. If he said he commanded a cavalry of star-unicorns and hung the stars in the sky every night just for her, she’d believe him. Pitch clenched his eyes shut and shook his head at the strange, intrusive thoughts. What was a star unicorn, anyway? Even Cupcake’s dream hadn’t been so absurd—  
  
“Hide and seek?” the little girl asked. “You hide next!”  
  
“Do you even know—” Pitch began, then, unaccountably, stopped. Yes, he was busy, but was he too busy for this? He had his strategy already, couldn’t he make time for her? He didn’t know when he would be back and she wouldn’t understand, the history books would have everything else but they wouldn’t have this game of hide-and-seek…He growled and shook his head. “I’ll have you know that I’m very good at hiding,” he said.   
  
The little girl clapped her hands, and for some reason this felt more like victory than his triumphs of the past few days.  
  
“I’m going to count!” She said, and put her hands over her eyes. “One, two, three…”  
  
Pitch settled into a shadowy hollow between two boulders, near to the ground. It would have been an excellent hiding place indeed, if he had not made sure to stick half of his foot out into the light.  
  
“Four, five, six, seven…one hundred…one billion! I’m going to find you!”  
  
From his hiding place, Pitch could watch Sophie wander around the clearing, peering behind saplings and under flowers and in other improbable places. She was so careful with the flowers, it reminded him of…something, something…  
  
When her face lit up upon spotting his foot, he found himself smiling in return.   
  
And then, in the distance, he heard the voices of the Guardians in the Warren.   
  
The Guardians. His plan. What was he doing?  _Playing hide and seek,_  one part of his mind answered reasonably. He shuddered involuntarily. That wasn’t what he wanted, was it?  
  
Was it?  
  
“Found you!” the little girl yelled.  
  
He shuddered again, and wondered that it felt like something within him shuddering, not himself and what is himself?  
  
Another jolting shudder. “Almost,” he said to himself, drawing his foot back into the shadows. “Almost, little girl. Almost, but not quite.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: This was adorable and heart-breaking. I love Pitch/Sophie interactions.


End file.
